William S. Hamilton - Mining Career

Mining Career

When Hamilton moved from Illinois to Wisconsin in the late 1820s he established a lead ore mine that became known as Hamilton's Diggings; he later renamed the settlement Wiota. During the 1832 Black Hawk War a fort was erected at Hamilton's Diggings, it was known as Fort Hamilton. Two contemporary descriptions of Hamilton's Diggings provide a glimpse into the mining life of Hamilton and the others settled at present-day Wiota. An 1831 account from Juliette Kinzie noted the unkempt conditions as "shabby" and "unpromising". Kinzie also decried the foul language from the miners, whom she called the "roughest-looking set of men I ever beheld." The other description of early Wiota was provided by Theodore Rodolf in 1834. Rodolf, a one-time political opponent of Hamilton, contrasted the settlement's apparently rough exterior with small, finer details, such as the presence of a quarto edition of Voltaire's works, printed in Paris.

Hamilton never married and presented a rough, garish appearance. His mother, Elizabeth Schuyler (daughter of General Philip Schuyler) visited Hamilton at Hamilton's Diggings during the winter of 1837–38. During the same period, Hamilton briefly owned the Mineral Point Miners' Free Press; he sold it to a group from Galena and the paper became known as the Galena Democrat.

When gold was discovered in California, in 1848, gold fever spread into the Midwest lead-mining region. Hamilton set out for California, arriving in 1849, with high hopes, and new equipment. His life in the west would prove to be a disappointment and he later regretted moving there. Hamilton told a friend in California that he would "rather have been hung in the 'Lead Mines' than to have lived in this miserable hole (California)."